WIDESPREAD FAILURES —
Texas’ “failsafe” generators failed, risking weeks-long catastrophe

Black start generators—and their backups—failed en masse during deep freeze.

TIM DE CHANT - 5/28/2021

Enlarge / A worker repairs a power line in Austin, Texas, on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021.

Texas’ days-long power outages during last February’s deep freeze almost stretched into weeks or even months thanks to a string of failures at “black start” generators.

More than half of the state’s 28 black start generators, which are crucial for bringing a collapsed grid back to life, experienced outages themselves, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal. Of the 13 primary generators, nine encountered trouble, as did six of 15 secondary generators acting as backups in case the primary backups failed. Some had trouble getting enough fuel to run, while others were damaged by the cold weather.

“Having had experience for almost two decades with utilities, it’s genuinely inconceivable to me—even in today’s massively deregulated environment—I cannot imagine how any regulatory oversight got itself into this position,” said Evan Wilner, who served as Delaware’s first public advocate representing utility customers.

While one black start generator is theoretically enough to bring a grid back to life, the process would take an exceptionally long time, which is why grids have many such generators standing by.

Five minutes from catastrophe

Early on the morning of February 15, Texas came within five minutes of needing its troubled black start generators. Fossil fuel generators began tripping offline and wind turbines were freezing, eventually causing more than 35 GW of capacity to become unavailable. Cold temperatures were driving demand higher, and the grid’s frequency began dropping dangerously.

FURTHER READINGTexas gov knew of natural gas shortages days before blackout, blamed wind anyway

Just before 2 am, as the frequency dropped to 59.4 Hz and then to 59.3 Hz, grid operators began “shedding load,” a technical term for cutting off power to portions of the grid. That action reduced demand, which brought the frequency back closer to the target of 60 Hz.

If grid operators had been unable to bring the frequency back up, the power plants that had been generating would have been forced offline to avoid damage to their equipment. Already widespread outages would have spread even further, plunging more of Texas into darkness.

If the grid had collapsed, Texas would have needed to turn to its black start generators to slowly bring each power plant back online. But when the state would have needed them most, many generators were unable to fulfill their duties. The black start generator at the massive 3.65 GW coal- and gas-fired W.A. Parish power plant was down for 17 hours on February 15, the day the outages began. Black start at another large generator, the 1 GW T.H. Wharton plant, was down for 84 hours that week because its air intake was frozen. The average length of outages across all black start generators in Texas during the deep freeze was 40 hours.

Black start power

Without working black start generators, power plants cut off from the grid have no way of getting back online. All power plants, including nuclear and hydroelectric, require electricity to jump-start their operations. Without power, pumps can’t feed water to boilers, and spillways can’t open to allow water to course through their turbines. Even the generators themselves require a small amount of electricity to excite the electromagnetic fields in their rotors. Larger power plants generally require larger black start generators, and those units may require smaller generators to get cranking.

Some power plants that provide black start services are finding the economics challenging, according to the WSJ report. One small hydroelectric plant in West Virginia says it spends $65,000 to comply with black start regulations but earns only $51,000 a year for the service.

Every North American grid has black start generators, but there’s no nationwide standard regulating them. Each state or grid operator decides how to operate the generators. Some use a mix of fossil fuel generators and hydroelectric dams. Hydro is particularly attractive because the fuel source is often more reliable—as long as there’s water behind the dam, the generators require just a small amount of power, either from a generator or a battery, to ramp up to full capacity.Advertisement

But Texas no longer has any hydroelectric black start facilities. All of its black start generators use natural gas as a primary fuel, and only 13 generators at six sites can use fuel oil as a backup. When natural gas supplies run short, generators without an alternate fuel source are unable to provide vital services to the grid. Plant operators are required to maintain a reserve supply of fuel, but it wasn’t clear during the February freeze that they were all fulfilling this obligation. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which manages most of the state’s electrical grid, is reportedly in the process of trying to recover some of the payments made to black start facilities that failed during the outage.

Myriad costs

Utilities in Texas may not have trouble recouping their costs, though. Texas lawmakers are on the verge of passing bills that would allow gas and electric utilities and cooperatives to issue state-approved bonds that would be backed by additional charges on customers’ bills, according to the Texas Tribune.

FURTHER READING Texas’ power grid crumples under the cold

Utilities and cooperatives ran up massive debts when ERCOT set the maximum wholesale rate at $9,000 per MWh, and natural gas prices spiked as supplies tanked. If the bills pass, natural gas utilities could issue $4.5 billion in ratepayer-backed bonds, and electric cooperatives could issue $2 billion in bonds. Retail electric providers could finance $2.1 billion for power bought but never received, and ERCOT would receive an $800 million loan from the rainy day fund to pay companies that are still owed money.

The financial toll is just a sideshow to the human costs of the disaster, though. While 151 deaths have been officially attributed to the outages, a new BuzzFeed News report suggests that the tally is likely closer to 700.

SWING AND A MISS —
CDC loosened mask guidance to encourage vaccination—it failed spectacularly
FDA approval and paid time off would make people more likely to get a shot, poll finds.

BETH MOLE - 5/28/2021, 

Enlarge / A thrown-away surgical mask lays on the ground.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stunned health officials and experts on May 13 with the abrupt announcement that people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 could forgo masking in most settings—indoor, outdoor, uncrowded, and crowded alike. The guidance was a stark reversal from the health agency’s previous stance, issued just two weeks earlier, that still recommended vaccinated people wear masks among crowds and in many indoor, uncrowded settings.

The CDC said at the time that it was merely following the science for masking. The agency and its director, Rochelle Walensky, highlighted fresh, real-world studies demonstrating COVID-19 vaccines’ high efficacy and ability to lower transmission risks. But the update was also part of an overt effort to encourage vaccination among the vaccine hesitant by emphasizing the perks of being vaccinated—like not needing to wear masks anymore and reclaiming other bits of normal life.

That messaging shift came as states across the country started to see their pace of vaccination slow despite a glut of vaccine doses. Numerous polls have indicated that most of the people eager to get vaccinated already have. Now, with just 62 percent of the US adult population vaccinated, much of the remaining unvaccinated portion is either hesitant or resistant to being vaccinated. It’s that group of people the CDC was trying to reach with the new mask guidance.

“The science is also very clear about unvaccinated people,” Walensky said during the May 13 press briefing, in which she announced the mask guidance update. “[Unvaccinated people] remain at risk of mild or severe illness, of death, or spreading the disease to others. You should still mask, and you should get vaccinated right away… Your health and how soon you return to normal life before the pandemic are in your very capable hands.”Advertisement

Mask blunder

The mask update immediately generated confusion and controversy given the reversal and its abruptness. And according to fresh polling data, the guidance failed spectacularly at convincing unvaccinated people to get vaccinated.


FURTHER READING

CDC defends its abrupt reversal on masks after backlash from expertsIn new results 

from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s ongoing COVID-19 vaccine monitoring poll, 85 percent of unvaccinated people said the CDC’s loosened mask guidance for fully vaccinated people made “no difference” to their vaccination plans. Only 10 percent said the change made them “more likely” to get vaccinated and a final 4 percent or so said the change made them “less likely” to get a shot.

It gets worse. The poll broke unvaccinated people into three groups: people who said they would “definitely not” get vaccinated, people who would get vaccinated “only if required,” or people who would “wait and see.” Those most resistant to getting vaccinated were the least likely to be swayed by the CDC’s latest guidance. Among the “definitely not” group, 98 percent said the change made no difference to them and the remaining 2 percent said they were less likely to get vaccinated—zero percent said they were more likely to get a vaccine. For the “only if required” group, 89 percent said the CDC change made no difference.

Overall in the poll—which collects data on a nationally representative sampling of adults—62 percent said they had already gotten their vaccine (which tracks with CDC vaccination data), 12 percent said they would wait and see about vaccination, 7 percent said they would only get vaccinated if they were required, and 13 percent said they would “definitely not” get vaccinated. That “definitely not” portion has largely remained the same throughout the polling, which stretches back to December.

While the CDC’s loosened masking guidance was clearly not persuasive to the unvaccinated, the poll explored other tactics that could boost vaccination. The two ideas that seemed to have the most sway were: 1) if the Food and Drug Administration grants a vaccine full approval, rather than the current Emergency Use Authorizations (EUA); and 2) if employers provided paid time off to get vaccinated and recover from any side effects, like feeling under the weather the day after a dose.

FDA approval and PTO

A total of 32 percent of unvaccinated people said a full FDA approval (a Biologics License Application [BLA] approval) would make them more likely to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Currently, all three vaccines available in the US have been granted an EUA. The FDA grants EUAs only during public health emergencies, like the COVID-19 pandemic, through a process that is fast-tracked compared with a full BLA approval.

Importantly, both tracks require efficacy and safety data from massive Phase III clinical trials. The main difference between an EUA and full approval is the amount of time that people in the clinical trials are followed after full vaccination. Typically, the FDA likes to have at least six months of follow-up data from a vaccine trail. This allows the trial runners and the FDA to look at how well vaccine protection holds up over that time and if any rare side effects crop up. For an EUA, the follow-up period may only be around two months.

However, the difference is largely moot at this point. With nearly 167 million people in the US alone already given at least one shot, regulators have a wealth of post-market safety data. Also, Pfizer and BioNTech announced in April that they had six-months of trial follow-up data that confirmed the vaccine’s high efficacy and found no safety concerns. Earlier this month, Pfizer and BioNTech, as well as Moderna, announced that they have started a rolling data-submission process for a BLA.

Still, a full approval would seem to go a long way for swaying vaccine holdouts. Forty-four percent of the unvaccinated people in the “wait and see” group said a full FDA approval would make them more likely to get a vaccine, and 29 percent of the “only if required” group said the same.

That’s a far larger effect than those seen with some of the other vaccination boosters mentioned in the poll, such as free Uber rides to vaccine sites or $100 cash for getting a shot. The only thing that came close was paid time off for getting vaccinated and recovering. Twenty-one percent of employed unvaccinated poll respondents said the paid time off would make them more likely to get a vaccine.

Tens of thousands protest in Brazil

Crowds demand Bolsonaro's impeachment and better vaccine access

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL – MAY 29: A demonstrator holds a sign against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro that reads ‘Genocidal out’ during a protest against his government at Paulista avenue on May 29, 2021 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Demonstrations against Jair Bolsonaro take place today in over 100 cities of Brazil. Brazilian president faces a probe carried by the Congress over his response to the pandemic. Protestors have a wide range of demands, including impeachment for Bolsonaro, increase of emergency economic aid, end of violence against black population and urgent arrival of vaccines to speed up inoculation. Brazil is being hit hard by the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic and has reported over 457,000 deaths as cases continue to surge. (Photo by Miguel Schincariol/Getty Images)
By CNN.COM

PUBLISHED: May 30, 2021 

By Marcia Reverdosa and Rodrigo Pedroso | CNN

Tens of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets Saturday to voice their frustrations with President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis, in what appeared to be the largest protests the country has seen since the pandemic began last year.

Demonstrators in some of the country’s largest cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, called for the president’s impeachment and better access to Covid-19 vaccines. Many protesters did not appear to be practicing social distancing, although most wore masks.

Brazil is facing a possible third wave of Covid-19, with the Health Ministry reporting 79,670 new Covid-19 cases and 2,012 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday. The country has recorded more than 460,000 deaths from Covid-19 and 16 million infections.

Of its population of more than 210 million, around 19 million — or fewer than 9.4% — have been fully vaccinated.

Bolsonaro repeatedly downplayed the pandemic in its initial stages. He previously called Covid-19 a “little flu” and sabotaged efforts to implement social distancing or lockdowns. Signs referring to Bolsonaro’s actions amounting to a “genocide” were seen at the demonstrations.

Brazil’s Senate is conducting an inquiry into the Bolsonaro government’s handling of the pandemic.
On GPS: Latin America's Covid crisis

In Sao Paulo, protesters expressed frustration with Bolsonaro’s policies.

Nurse Patricia Ferreira said Bolsonaro was “worse than the virus at the moment.”

“We are exhausted, with our healthcare system on the verge of collapse,” she said. “There is no solution to the pandemic with him (Bolsonaro) in power.”

Student Beatriz Fernanda Silva said she was demonstrating to honor her uncle, who she said was killed by Covid-19 at age 42.

“I came here to fight for the vaccine that he was unable to get and could have saved him. He died at the end of February and left two children and a wife,” the student said.

She said she recognized the risk she was taking by “being on the street in the middle of a pandemic,” but thought it was important to speak out.

“A lot of people are dying. Bolsonaro should do something about it, but from the start, he treated it with total neglect,” Silva told CNN.

The protests were largely peaceful, except for Pernambuco state capital Recife, where the police used rubber bullets, gas bombs, and pepper spray to disperse the crowd. Videos circulating on social media appeared to show one protester was shot in the eye by a rubber bullet and police were seen using pepper spray on Liana Cisne, a local councilwoman from the Worker´s Party.

Pernambuco state vice-governor Luciana Santos said the order to disperse the protesters did not come from the government and an investigation has been launched into police tactics. Governor Paulo Camara has suspended the police commander and officers involved, until the end of the inquiry.

The protests came a week after a motorbike rally President Bolsonaro organized in Rio de Janeiro. There, he advocated against restrictive measures while his supporters called for the overthrow of Brazil’s Supreme Court, which has given local governors and mayors the ability to enforce measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

Brazilian protesters call for Bolsonaro's impeachment
MAY 29, 2021 /

A protester holds a placard during protest against his Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's government during a demonstration in Brasilia, Brazil Saturday. Photo by Joédson Alves/EPA-EFE

May 29 (UPI) -- Tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in Brazilian cities to demand President Jair Bolsonaro be impeached over his response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed nearly half a million people in the country.

The demonstrations are estimated to be the largest anti-Bolsonaro actions since the first cases of the virus were reported in the country, The Guardian reported.

As of Saturday, the novel coronavirus has killed 461,057 Brazilians and sickened 16.5 million people in the country, according to Johns Hopkins University's COVID-19 tracker, giving the country the second highest official death toll after the United States.

Many demonstrators in Rio carried homemade placards to commemorate loved ones they have lost to the virus.

Luiz Dantas, 18, who marched carrying a photo of his deceased 75-year-old grandfather, told The Guardian, "The culprit has a first and a second name," in reference to Bolsonaro's response to the virus.

A Brazilian Senate commission is investigating Bolsonaro's coronavirus policies, including allegations that his administration promoted unproven remedies, failed to secure vaccines and pressured local leaders who wanted to impose stricter health restrictions, Al Jazeera reported.

"Today is a decisive milestone in the battle to defeat Bolsonaro's genocidal administration," said Silvia de Mendonça, 55, a civil rights activist from Brazil's Unified Black Movement as she led protesters through Rio's city center.

Thousands of people protested against Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on Saturday in Rio de Janeiro, calling for his impeachment and criticizing his handling of the pandemic.(May 29)

UK

Two-thirds of retailers face legal action in July over unpaid rents
BY TOM BOTTOMLEY
-30TH MAY 2021

© TheIndustry.fashion

On 30 June 2021 the moratorium on aggressive debt collection from commercial landlords will end, opening up thousands of retailers to legal action, according to a new survey by the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

With many retailers closed for large periods during the last fifteen months, many have accrued huge debts that they are only just beginning to be able to pay. Total rent debt is estimated to be £2.9bn.

Almost one third (30%) of retailers say they have already faced County Court Judgements (CCJs) from commercial landlords. Furthermore, 80% of tenants said some landlords have given them less than a year to pay back rent arrears accrued during the pandemic.

Already, one in seven shops lie empty (according to the BRC-LDC Vacancy Monitor, Q1, 2021), with that number expected to rise. The BRC says that without action the end of the moratorium could result in “a tsunami of closures.”

The government introduced a Code of Practice last year to address the outstanding debt issues. Unfortunately, the BRC says two thirds of those surveyed described the code as ‘ineffective’ due to its voluntary nature.

The BRC is urging the government to give the code greater weight and take other measures to support tenants and landlords, including:

Ringfencing the rent arrears built up during the pandemic and extend the moratorium on repayment of these debts to the end of the year

Extending the protections on these debts to include County Court Judgements (CCJs)
Introducing compulsory arbitration from 1 January, 2022, using the Code of Practice, to give teeth to this otherwise weak process

Retailers are running out of time to save their businesses. Where agreement cannot be reached by 1 July, 2021, between retailers and landlords, many shops will find themselves unable to maintain their presence on high streets, shopping centres and retail parks.

Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the BRC, said: “Many retailers have taken a battering over the pandemic, but they are now getting back on their feet and playing their part in reinvigorating the economy. The unpaid rents accrued during the pandemic, when most shops were shut, are a £2.9 billion ball and chain that hold back growth and investment and could result in a tsunami of closures.

“The government must ringfence the rent debts built up during the pandemic, giving retailers breathing space as they wait for footfall and cash flows to return. With this in place, all parties can work on a sustainable long-term solution, one that shares the pain wrought by the pandemic more equally between landlords and tenants. Without action, it will be our city centres, our high streets and our shopping centres that suffer the consequences, holding back the wider economic recovery.”

The BRC survey was conducted in April and May, 2021, and respondents account for over £12bn in turnover and 5,000 stores.

UK companies face pressure over links to Belarus regime
Ben Quinn
THE GUARDIAN

30/5/2021

The role of UK companies in allegedly helping to prop up Europe’s so-called “last dictatorship” is coming under unprecedented pressure amid signs that lobbying by Belarusian exiles and others is paying off.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Belarusian exiles have stepped up lobbying in the wake of the arrest of the journalist Raman Pratasevich and his partner.

Rolls-Royce and British American Tobacco are among the firms that have responded to lobbying by the Belarusian diaspora and indicated they were willing to take action.

In the wake of the “hijacking” last Sunday of a Ryanair plane and the arrest of two passengers onboard, the Belarusian journalist Raman Pratasevich and his Russian girlfriend, activists in the UK have stepped up lobbying of the holders of Belarus bonds listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

But among the UK-based companies to have responded are some which have been alerted to alleged severe violations of workers’ rights to assemble, strike and form independent trade unions at Belarusian state-owned enterprises.

They include Rolls-Royce, which is a supplier of BelAZ, a Belarusian vehicle factory and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of large dump trucks. Rolls-Royce confirmed to the Guardian that it was investigating concerns raised about the relationship between its Power Systems business, based in Germany, and BelAZ.

“Depending on the outcome, we may choose to take action in relation to our existing and any future business relationship,” the company said. “We are guided by our values when considering such matters and, of course, we comply in full with any applicable sanctions.”

Protests have continued outside the offices of British American Tobacco over its connections with the state-owned Grodno Tobacco Factory (GTF) Neman. The largest cigarette factory in Belarus makes cigarettes under licence for BAT.

“Britain is a window to the world. It is a high financial centre. It has an important role in trade despite Brexit. So we are stepping up our campaign,” said a spokesperson for the Professional Union of Belarusians in Britain. “BAT has been an important example, but we have also, for example, become aware of indications that some British companies are actually buying wood from Belarus and the figures there have been quite significant. We are going to investigate that as well.

“In terms of British business, their attitude so far has been pretty much along the lines of ‘as long as we can make money we do’. Many big companies have codes of conduct with pleasant-sounding wording, but there are questions about how they are employed in practice when it comes to Belarus.”

A BAT spokesperson said the company was committed to complying with all the applicable local and international legislative requirements as well as its own standards.

“In line with our commitment to respect human rights, this year we will undertake additional actions: BAT Belarus will be subject to an enhanced human rights due-diligence process; and the GTF Neman factory, as a supplier to the BAT Group, will be subject to an onsite workplace conditions assessment by our third-party audit provider.”

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, was urged by his Labour shadow, Lisa Nandy, to impose sanctions against state-owned enterprises in Belarus – some of which continue to have UK subsidiaries, such as BNK (UK).

Raab has castigated what he described as a “reckless, cynical and dangerous hijacking of the Ryanair flight by the Belarus government” and said further sanctions were being considered against Belarus. The operating permit for Belavia, the country’s state-owned airline, has been suspended in the UK.

In June 2020 the Belarus finance ministry issued two sovereign eurobonds on the London Stock Exchange for a total of $1.25bn (£880m). In a posting on the LSE’s website, Ayuna Nechaeva, the LSE’s head of Europe, described the listing as “testament to the high level of investor demand in the Belarusian story”. The LSE declined to comment when approached by the Guardian.

Belarusian editor arrested amid crackdown on journalists


KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The chief editor of a popular Internet news site in one of Belarus’ largest cities was detained Sunday amid a crackdown on independent journalists and opponents of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Police said they were investigating Hrodna. life editor Aliaksei Shota on suspicion of extremism.

The publication focuses on Belarus’ fifth-largest city, Grodno. City police said the website “posted information products that were duly recognized as extremist,” but didn't give details. It wasn't immediately clear if Shota had been formally charged with extremism, which can carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

Shota had collaborated with the country’s most popular internet portal Tut.by, which authorities closed this month after arresting 15 employees.

Belarus’ crackdown escalated a week ago with the arrest of dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich jand his girlfriend who were aboard a commercial flight that was diverted to the Minsk airport because of an alleged bomb threat. The flight was flying over Belarus en route from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania.

The move sparked wide denunciation in the West as an act of hijacking and demands for Pratasevich's release. The European Union banned flights from Belarus.

Pratasevich is charged with organizing riots, a charge that carries a potential sentence of 15 years.

The day after his arrest, authorities released a brief video in which Pratasevich said he was confessing, but observers said the statement appeared to be forced.

The Belarusian human rights group Viasna said Sunday that Pratasevich had received a package from his sister but that an unspecified book had been taken from it.

Large protests broke out last August after a presidential election that officials said overwhelmingly gave a sixth term in office to Lukashenko, who has consistently repressed opposition since coming to power in 1994.

Police detained more than 30,000 people in the course of the protests, which persisted for months. Although protests died down during the winter, authorities have continued strong actions against opposition supporters and independent journalists.

The Associated Press

Parents of detained journalist in Myanmar: 'It's a total nightmare'
By David Goldman, CNN Business 

The parents of an American journalist detained in Myanmar have a message for local authorities: Release him now.

© courtesy Bryan Fenster

"It's a total nightmare; it's a total feeling of no control. It's heart-wrenching," said Rose Fenster, mother of Frontier Myanmar editor Danny Fenster, on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday. "I just want my son home no matter what it takes. Please release him and send him home to his family."

Fenster, 37, was stopped at the Yangon airport as he tried to board a flight out of the country last week. He was on his way home to surprise his parents. Fenster is a US citizen from Detroit. He works in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city.

Buddy Fenster, Danny Fenster's father, told CNN Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter Sunday that his son had two weeks ago noted a rapidly worsening situation for journalists in Myanmar following February's military coup.

"He voiced concern: 'All the reporters; all the journalists are leaving this country," Buddy Fenster said. "I got a feeling he thought it may be time to start heading home."

Fenster's parents said he had a passion to "write what's right" and to speak truth. They said they supported his decision to travel the world — first to Bangkok and eventually to Myanmar — even as they grew increasingly worried about his safety.

"I'm trying to be strong and positive — and It's minute by minute, running on fumes, keeping my mind on the positive and not letting my mind going to where it could go," Rose Fenster said. "We've always had a sense of danger when he went there — yes, a sense of danger and awareness — but trust."

The Fensters started a petition on MoveOn to keep pressure on American politicians to get their son back to the United States.

"It's just about awareness, it's getting the word out," said Buddy Fenster. "It's not letting this story slide away in the news cycle. We want people talking about this story every day."

Buddy Fenster also has a message to Myanmar's military regime: Imprisoning journalists is not a winning strategy.

"Their efforts to squelch journalism ... just kills life. It kills freedom and it kills truth," Buddy Fenster said. "They need to let him go immediately. He has not committed any crime there."

US must share intelligence on Covid origins, WHO-affiliated expert says

A health expert affiliated with the World Health Organization has called on the US to share any intelligence it has about the origins of the coronavirus outbreak with the WHO and the scientific community.

Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Héctor Retamal/AFP/Getty

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is seen during a visit by members of the WHO investigating the origins of Covid-19.

Last week the Wall Street Journal cited US intelligence agencies who said they were told that three unnamed members of staff at a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan were sick enough to go hospital in November 2019 with Covid-like symptoms.

US intelligence chiefs later stressed they did not know how the virus was transmitted initially, but that they had two theories: either it emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, or it was a laboratory accident.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend, Dr Dale Fisher said the theory that the virus leaked from a laboratory was “not off the table”, but remained “unverified”. Fisher, chair of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which is coordinated by the WHO, urged the US to share any intelligence it had. “The Wall Street Journal is not really the way to share science,” he said.

An on-the-ground investigation by WHO experts earlier this year concluded that it was “extremely unlikely” that the pandemic began with a laboratory incident. But the terms of reference for their mission, agreed with China, were limited to studying the potential animal origins of the outbreak.

The broad consensus among scientific experts remains that the most likely explanation is that Covid-19 jumped to humans from an animal host in a natural event. Nevertheless, some experts have called for the lab leak theory – once dismissed as a conspiracy peddled by Donald Trump – to be looked at further.

Referring to the WHO’s visit earlier this year, Fisher said: “We believe that all the laboratory workers have had serology [tests] done and all those antibody tests were negative and that was part of the reason why the risk was downplayed.”

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the WHO, said he did not believe the initial report was extensive enough and called for more research, adding that all hypotheses as to the origins of the virus that causes Covid-19 “remain on the table”.

Fisher urged the WHO to set out its plans for further investigation. He said: “People really haven’t heard anything since the February mission was done and therefore people think they’ve stopped looking for the origins, which is far from the truth – it’s only really just begun.”

The UK vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, said the WHO must be allowed to fully investigate, telling Sky News: “I think it’s really important that the WHO is allowed to conduct its investigation unencumbered into the origins of this pandemic and that we should leave no stone unturned.”

Fisher, who took part in a WHO mission in 2020, suggested that China’s secrecy about the origins of the virus could be driven by fears of compensation claims.

He said: “Any country that found any Covid-19 in its borders before the outbreak started would suddenly clam up. This is why I would argue that diplomacy is the way forward with this, creating a no-blame culture. The only way you really can get to the bottom of this is just to say: ‘Look, there’s no penalties, we just need to sort this out.’”

WHO must be 'allowed to conduct its investigation unencumbered', says vaccines minister

Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:09 AM

The World Health Organisation (WHO) must be allowed to fully investigate the origins of the Covid pandemic, the UK’s vaccines minister has said. Nadhim Zahawi’s comments come after the Sunday Times reported that British agents now believe it is “feasible” that the crisis began with a coronavirus leak from a Chinese research laboratory in Wuhan.

Video Transcript

NADHIM ZAHAWI: No, but I want to congratulate the prime minister and Carrie Symonds on tying the knot. And it's a great feeling as you come together. And of course, I think it's-- it's a wonderful thing for both of them that they have really sort of made their marriage vows to one another.

We continue to vaccinate at scale. We are almost at 39 million people now with at least one dose and almost 25 million people with two doses. So I think the important thing is to keep going vaccinating at scale but also share the data on the 14th of June as we have done in the past to give people the ability then to plan ahead.

At every step of the way, it's tried to share as much data with the world as it is able to verify. This is a very difficult situation as we've seen around the world, not just in the WHO, but of course in our own country with our own evidence gathering and, of course, advice and in other countries.

Every country, whether it's Singapore or Australia or New Zealand or elsewhere, we've all had to, you know, collect evidence and then act upon it. And I think it's only right that the WHO is allowed to conduct its investigation unencumbered to be able for all of us to understand and to deal with this and future pandemics.

 Forest research makes UBC professor a Hollywood star

Duration: 01:48 

A UBC professor is going to "Hollywood" as a result of what she's learned about our forests and as Emad Agahi reports, her research is especially timely given the ongoing old-growth protests on Vancouver Island.

Manatees are dying in droves this year. Here's why the die-offs spell trouble for Florida

By Scottie Andrew, CNN 7

Despite their portly frame and inherent meekness, Florida's manatees are survivors

Paul Rovere/Getty Images Florida's beloved manatee is having a devastating year. More than 749 manatees have died since the start of 2021, a number some longtime advocates fear could grow to over 1,000.

When power plants began popping up along Florida's East and West coasts, manatees learned to follow the flow of the unseasonably warm water.

When boats with sharp motors increasingly flooded their habitats, they learned how to live with debilitating injuries, or tried to.

And when their favorite source of food began to disappear when toxic algae infested the water, they learned to eat less, often at the cost of their health.

Their gentle nature belies a deceptive resilience. Unathletic as they may seem -- they tip the scales at around half a ton -- they're built to endure.

 John Raoux/AP The Indian River Lagoon, pictured here in 2017, is in extreme environmental distress, and it's impacting the lives of hundresds of manatees that live there.

But how much more can one species take?

Decades of environmental stress culminated this year in one of the worst manatee die-offs in recent history: As of May 21, at least 749 manatees have died in Florida in 2021, in what the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has called an unusual mortality event, or UME.

Manatee advocates who've sounded the alarm for years saw it coming.

"Manatees are literally that sentinel species," says Patrick Rose, executive director of the Save the Manatee Club, a 40-year-old nonprofit co-founded by Jimmy Buffet. "They're warning us of what else is going to come if we don't do a better job while there's still time to do something about it. If we don't, our own lives will suffer."

Florida, the third-most populous state in the US and still growing, stands to lose more than its state marine mammal if manatees go extinct. The same issues that have caused their mass deaths are disrupting freshwater and saltwater sanctuaries, killing off fish and other species and mucking up the water that millions rely on for their livelihoods. Florida beaches are now as well known for red tide as they are for pristine white sand and watercolor sunsets.

© Courtesy Sea & Shoreline Sea & Shoreline farms seagrass. It then plants the grasses underwater, protects them with a cage and maintains their new habitat until they're strong enough to grow on their own.

Rose thinks around 1,000 manatees could wind up dead by the end of the year. If manatees continue to die at such a rate, with an estimated 7,500 animals left in the wild (before factoring in this year's deaths), it could be only a matter of years left to save them -- and clean up Florida's water.

© Courtesy Save the Manatee Club When manatees are malnourished, they can lose weight toward the back of their heads, giving their face a distinct peanut-like shape.


A sea of problems faces manatees

West Indian manatees had been on the mend for many years before their fortunes changed. Their recovery from near-extinction in the 1970s to a population over 7,000 was heralded as a victory for conservation. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, in a decision that proved controversial, even downlisted the West Indian manatee from endangered to threatened in 2017 due to the major population gains.

But problems had been bubbling below the surface for decades, and in 2021 it seems they've boiled over. The stressors facing manatees are numerous and entwined, and one can't be conquered without addressing the other, said Michael Walsh, a clinical associate professor at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine who specializes in aquatic animal health.

The trouble, Walsh says, begins in the water.

When nutrients from wastewater or runoff containing fertilizers, microplastics or toxic chemicals leach into a manatee's marine habitat -- whether freshwater or saltwater -- they can throw off the balance of the water and cause harmful algae blooms to form.

 Greg Lovett/Palm Beach Post/USA Today Network Manatees crowd together near the warm-water outflows from Florida Power & Light's plant in Riviera Beach, Florida, in February.

The blooms blanket the surface of the water and shade out the seagrasses underwater that rely on the sun to survive, killing the grasses.

The seagrasses that survive the malevolent blooms are then overgrazed by manatees whose sources of food have shrunk, so the plants can't quickly regrow and continue to feed the manatees, Walsh said.

And when seagrasses die, gone is the manatee's favorite food source. They may start to nosh on other plants that don't fortify them the same way, or make do with less food (manatees should eat somewhere around 10% of their body weight per day, which translates to about 100 pounds of grass for an 1,000-pound adult manatee) and begin to lose weight. Over time, this leads to malnutrition and, eventually, starvation, Walsh said.

While climate change is generally warming water temperatures, warmer temperatures can foster the growth of harmful algae, which may kill seagrasses in their favorite warm water oases. So manatees may travel hundreds of miles until they find a new source of food and, hopefully, warm water. But the colder it gets, the more food they'll need to consume to stay warm, Walsh said. If there's less food, they'll succumb more quickly to cold stress -- for their impressive girth, they don't have enough blubber to keep themselves warm when the water temperature drops below 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

What's more, manatees have learned to rely on the warm water outflows from power plants on both coasts of the state -- about two-thirds of all manatees stay warm this way, according to a 2013 estimate. If those plants close as the state transitions to more sustainable energy sources, manatees will lose a reliable haven for warmth, leaving them with few options for wintering, Rose said.

There's also the problem of people: Florida has around 21.4 million residents, according to a 2019 Census Bureau count (a figure that may be higher now, given the number of Northeastern expats who moved down during the pandemic). Couple unimpeded population growth with an infrastructure system the American Society of Civil Engineers described as "deteriorating," and the pressure on water treatment systems in the state can be debilitating.

"Add up starvation, together with red tide, severe cold weather mortality ... these are just absolute catastrophic losses that they may never be able to recover from," Rose said.

Just under 90 manatees have been rescued in 2021 so far, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. But most manatees who've died have not been necropsied, and some of their bodies were too decomposed to study, according to the commission's preliminary mortality report for the year.

© Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP/Getty Images Boats were once manatees' most fearsome foe. These days, they're one of many.

The last comparable unusual mortality event occurred in 2010, when temperatures in Florida fell to historic lows in a cold snap that proved extremely dangerous for manatees. More than 760 manatees died that year, according to the FWC.

But 2021's count is already approaching that number, and the year isn't even halfway through.

What went wrong in manatees' favorite habitat

Perhaps no ecosystem in Florida is a better example of the dire state of the manatee than the Indian River Lagoon. An ecologically rich estuary that spans more than 150 miles along the East Coast -- enough room for manatees to forage and raise their calves without bumping snouts -- more than one-third of the country's manatees call it home at some point throughout the year.

But just as decades of human-made environmental degradation have caught up with manatees, the Indian River Lagoon is dying, too. An estimated 58% of the estuary's seagrasses have died in the last 11 years, according to the St. Johns River Water Management District, a regulatory agency that oversees the Indian River Lagoon.

Some parts of the lagoon are rife with microplastics, or small pieces of plastic that may never fully break down, even more so than in other well-tread waterways in Florida. A 2018 study found that crabs and oysters in Mosquito Lagoon, part of the Indian River Lagoon system, contained averages of 4.2 and 16.5 microplastic pieces per individual, the highest volume of microplastics recorded in invertebrates at the time.

© Courtesy Sea & Shoreline Sea & Shoreline divers, along with their agency partners and local activists, are dedicated to restoring the habitats where manatees thrive.

As with manatees, the pollution, algal blooms and poor water treatment infrastructure are likely responsible for the Indian River Lagoon's problems, too, says Duane De Freese, marine biologist and executive director of the Indian River Lagoon Council and the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program.

Now, parts of the lagoon resemble a graveyard. CNN affiliate WPEC shared photos in early May of manatees washed up on the shore of the Indian River Lagoon, their bodies like deflated balloons. Their bones, picked clean by vultures, were haphazardly strewn across the sand where they'd washed up.

Manatee deaths are simply a "symptom of a system that is under stress and near collapse," De Freese said.

"This is about more than just the environment," he said. "It's about human health, it's about quality of life, it's about the economic vitality of our coastal communities. And if we fail to act in a science-driven way to solve these problems, as the population grows, these problems will grow with it."

And the natural elements that Floridians treasure -- clean water, fresh seafood, tourism, robust fisheries and, naturally, manatees -- will decline along with the environment, he said.

Saving the Indian River Lagoon requires money, which De Freese says is lacking. Though Gov. Ron DeSantis has passed laws like the Clean Waterways Act, which would fund projects to reduce nutrient pollution in vulnerable waters, overhauling the state's water infrastructure requires more than one bill, De Frees said.

But water quality and conservation is becoming a bipartisan issue among Florida lawmakers.

Republican Rep. Brian Mast and Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy introduced a bill in Congress this month that would improve federal funding for research and rehabbing of manatees and other marine life. The Palm Beach Post reported that Florida members of the House of Representatives wrote to President Joe Biden to ask for "robust funding" to support the Everglades, where some manatees spend their winters. Biden has confirmed his proposed infrastructure bill would be used to protect and restore the Everglades and other "major land and water resources."

Although "the ship turns a bit slower" up in Washington, De Frees said, support among lawmakers for cleaning up Florida's waters is good news. Those policies just need to be implemented quickly -- within the next few years, really -- to make a difference.

Novel solutions could be key to saving them

Saving Florida's manatees -- and restoring Florida's water quality -- has inspired a cooperative, occasionally tenuous relationship among manatee advocates and agencies, from Rose's Save the Manatee Club and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to veterinarians like Walsh and even US Geological Survey biologists who study the way polluted water impacts manatee health.

Also a recent addition to that crew -- farmers.

Jim Anderson lives in Ruskin, a coastal community known best for its tomato crops (and tomato festival). But about 25 years ago, after he noticed nearby seagrass beds were being torn up by boat propellers, Anderson switched from farming sod to farming seagrasses.

Since then, Anderson has operated a seagrass nursery for his business, Sea & Shoreline. He and his team grow half a million plants of 150 varieties, suitable for freshwater and saltwater. Seagrass restoration is a new industry in the state, and there's room for collaborators, he said.

In regions of freshwater and saltwater habitats where seagrass cover is sparse, Sea & Shoreline will plant seagrasses and place a protective cage over them to keep hungry manatees from eating them before they've taken root. Every few weeks, a dive team cleans the cage and mows the grass to foster its growth, he said.

Anderson and his team have found success already in another favorite spot of manatees -- Crystal River in western Florida. Sea & Shoreline has planted over 50 acres of seagrass there in the last four years and vacuumed up the toxic algal blooms. It's restored the pristine water clarity that lent the river its name, he said.

"It's expensive to do it, but how expensive is our water quality?" he said.

The prognosis of Florida's beloved 'sea cow'

Manatees would prefer not to fight for survival. They float through the water unrushed, soaking up their surroundings like bulbous gray sponges with snouts. Unlike the more aggressive dolphins or sharks of Florida, manatees do not provoke conflict. They'd rather flee, almost apologetically, than upset another creature.

But manatees have had to fight for decades. It's a battle they've won before through persistent conservation efforts, though humans are as much their downfall as their salvation.

Rose, now 70, has spent the last 40 years advocating on behalf of the "sea cows." He's seen their numbers shrink to less than 1,000 and bounce back again. Rose is "not willing to accept that we can't fix this," he said.

"But, I will tell you," he said, "it's going to be really, really hard."

Having delayed his retirement indefinitely to continue his work, Rose has some hope for the manatee's survival. Walsh and De Freese do too, and Anderson is optimistic that his seagrass restoration will continue to pay off for Florida's sea cow.

They're but four men in the campaign for manatees' survival. Local activists, Floridians who treasure their coasts and the life that relies on clean water, have kept the heat on officials to help save manatees. Their work continues until the day manatees can graze and swim and feel comfortable in the home they share with humans -- a day, manatee defenders hope, that will come while manatees still have some fight left.